


Book Club

by stuckoncloud9



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Catwoman reads books about cats, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Wally West appears for like five seconds, as he is wont to do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29884812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuckoncloud9/pseuds/stuckoncloud9
Summary: It's important for couples to understand each other's interests.
Relationships: Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 7
Kudos: 28





	Book Club

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a conversation with jovialJuggernaut about Selina's reading habits.

“So it’s Harry Potter with cats.”

Selina lowered her book onto her lap, glaring at Bruce in disbelief. “What part of my explanation brought you to _that_ conclusion?”

“You just told me there’s four clans,” Bruce said, his brow wrinkling in confusion. “One’s brave, one’s boring, one’s more boring, and one’s evil. How is that not Harry Potter with cats?”

“Um, because that’s not what I just told you?” she said, crossing her arms. “Shadowclan isn’t evil, they’re just—”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Named Shadowclan?”

“You literally dress up like a bat vampire every night,” Selina pointed out. “To scare people. On purpose. Are _you_ evil?”

“I’m a nuanced human being,” Bruce declared. Selina rolled her eyes. “They’re fictional cats. Besides, five minutes ago you told me their introduction in the first book was using child soldiers. That’s pretty much textbook ev—”

He paused, noticing the way Selina was staring at him.

“Evil,” he finished, frowning. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking,” he said, eyes narrowing. "Loudly."

She huffed and raised her book back to her face, slowly pulling her legs away from his lap as she drew back towards her side of the couch. She kept her gaze pointedly on the page in front of her, though in reality she was reading Bruce instead. 

He was staring at her, his head tilting the way it did when he was analyzing a challenging new opponent. Selina kept her smile pinned down, not letting it replace the annoyance on her face. Drawing that expression out of Bruce was one of her favorite pastimes, especially when it was over something as petty and ridiculous as a children’s book series that had started coming out when she was twelve.

“I apologize for mischaracterizing your novels,” he said carefully. “Maybe if you explained more about them, I would understand?”

She lowered her book below her nose. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s unlikely that anyone’s going to base a series of crimes off of their plots, and I know that’s your usual standard for the usefulness of pop culture knowledge.”

Bruce folded up his newspaper, setting it down on the coffee table in front of them. “I feel like the chance that you’re going to do exactly that has increased by 15% with every passing minute of this conversation,” he said. “So I might as well hear it from the source now.”

Selina sniffed derisively, crossing her legs beneath her as she settled in. “Well, they’re really more political thrillers than anything.”

Bruce pulled a notepad out of the inside of his jacket. “Cat political thrillers,” he echoed, his voice devoid of any inflection that could be used to interpret how seriously he was taking her. “Okay.”

“They’re about, you know.” Selina examined her nails. “The inevitability of violence and war in a society that’s unwilling to acknowledge, protect, or preserve love.”

“Hmm,” Bruce said, jotting something else down. “So it’s Hemingway. With cats.”

Selina wrinkled her nose. “The baby shoes guy?”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “Although he didn’t actually write the thing about baby shoes.”

“Huh,” Selina said. “What did he write about, then?”

Bruce paused, tapping the notepad with his pen. “Ah, the dangers of fascism. Tragic love. A lot of hunting.”

“Oh,” she said, then shrugged. “Then sure. Hemingway with cats.”

Bruce nodded. “Excellent,” he said. “Glad we could come to a mutually agreeable analogy.”

Selina watched with amusement as he tucked the notepad back in his jacket pocket. She relaxed against the arm of the couch, stretching her legs back over his lap.

“Now, stop interrupting my reading,” she said, trying to find where she’d left off on the page. “God.”

. . .

“I can’t believe this.”

“I bet you could,” Selina said. “If you tried.”

Bruce glared at her from behind the bars of the cage trap. “You’re really not going to let me out, are you?”

Selina shook her head, leaning back against the warehouse wall. “If I don’t, they’re giving me this huge diamond.” She held her hands several inches apart. “It’s _this_ big.”

“Oh, well. If it’s that big.”

“Don’t be so grumpy,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I bet one of your kittens is solving Eddie’s riddles as we speak.”

Bruce scowled. “I hate being rescued.”

She laughed. “And what would it be if _I_ let you out?”

“A favor,” he said immediately.

Selina paused, then leapt onto the top of the cage, dangling a leather clad leg over the edge. “Interesting,” she said, raking her claws against the steel. “A favor implies reciprocation. What do I get?”

The expression on Bruce’s face as he stared at her swaying leg was amusingly similar to that of a cat glaring at a string of yarn. “I won’t turn you in when this is all over.”

“Boring,” Selina yawned. “And pointless. You’d have to be able to _catch_ me in order to turn me in, I hope you realize.”

Bruce sighed. He sat down, legs crossed, in the center of the cage. Selina wasn’t sure how he always managed to get his cape to billow around him so perfectly when he did that. Maybe the edges of it were weighted. Or maybe he’d just had a lot of practice.

“I could read one of your cat books,” he said.

There was a pause.

“Really?” Selina asked, lowering her head upside down over the side of the cage.

Bruce stared up at her. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

“It’s kind of hard to tell with you,” Selina said, then narrowed her eyes. “You can’t just read one book, though. They run in six book story arcs.”

“Fine,” Bruce said. “One arc, then.”

Selina grinned, extending her claws to lockpick length. “Done.”

She did a flip off of the top of the cage, probably more dramatically than was strictly necessary. A few minutes of her undivided attention, and Eddie’s fancy locking mechanism was opened up like a henchman on Pamela’s pheromones. 

“Thanks,” Bruce said, stretching out his arms as he stepped out of the cage. 

“No problem,” Selina said. “My pleasure.”

“What about your diamond?” Bruce asked, holding out his hands. “I heard it was this big.”

“Oh, I stole that thing a week ago,” Selina said. “I left a pretty convincing replacement, though.”

Bruce shook his head. “Why do they keep trusting you to help with these things?”

Selina shrugged. “Ivy won’t join if she’s the token woman,” she explained. “Normally they’d call Harley, but she’s pretty committed to that whole ‘suicide sorority’ thing right now.”

“Squad,” Bruce said. “They could always call—”

“Don’t say it.”

“—Magpie,” he finished.

“Go fuck yourself,” she said. “Hey, do you want to get fish fry after this?”

“There’s seven bombs, Selina,” Bruce said. He fired his grapple into the warehouse skylight. “I’m probably going to be busy for a while.”

She mentally flipped through her calendar. “Sunday?”

“Maybe,” he said, then flipped the switch on his grapple that sent him soaring up towards the ceiling.

As he disappeared into the night sky, Selina waved up at the warehouse’s security camera. She wasn’t sure which rogue was on monitor duty right now, but she hoped it was one of the boys. It was always more fun when it was one of the boys.

. . . 

“Okay,” Bruce said. “You were right. Shadowclan wasn’t the evil one.”

“See?” Selina said, giving a light kick to his thigh. “I knew you’d like—”

“All the clans are evil,” he concluded. “Needletail was right. Their rules are stifled, prejudiced, and lead to bloody and completely unnecessary conflicts when they could all be living in cooperative peace.”

Selina frowned. “She was... Bruce, Needletail was a crazy extremist. She literally died because she was a crazy extremist.”

“No, she died because these books have a pro-clan agenda and terrible plot twists,” Bruce argued. “She was a much more dedicated and better-trained fighter than Darktail, realistically she could have won despite being outnumbered.”

Selina rolled her eyes. “She was pretty unambiguously manipulating her adopted daughter.”

“She had good intentions in doing that,” Bruce protested. “Clan rules separated their found family. Her only mistake was not making sure she was the one in charge instead of Darktail. Then Alderheart would have taken Twigpaw and gone off with her and Violetshine.”

“This conversation is insane,” Selina decided. “You’re insane.”

“Do you think if I bought HarperCollins, I could force them to write these better?” Bruce asked. “I wonder how much it would cost to bring in Gillian Flynn.”

“Oh my God,” Selina said, shooting up in her seat. “Do _not_ call Gillian Flynn about a children’s book series about feral cats who live on a lake. Do not even _think_ of the name Gillian Flynn and the concept of silly cat books with the same brain cells.”

“Are they silly?” Bruce asked seriously. “Or are they teaching impressionable children the lesson that manipulating people is wrong?”

Selina bapped the side of his head with a book. “Manipulating people _is_ wrong.”

“See?” Bruce said. “And you’ve been reading them since you were twelve. This is exactly my point.” 

“Whatever,” Selina said, privately amused. “Will you at least admit you’re Shadowclan now?”

“Well, yes,” Bruce said. “Obviously. I assume you’re Windclan?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, those whiners? Why?”

Bruce shrugged. “Because they’re too fast to catch.”

“Aw,” Selina said, her expression softening somewhat. _“Awwww.”_

“Does that mean you thought you were Riverclan?” Bruce asked, frowning. “You realize they’re objectively the worst clan, right?”

“Okay,” Selina said, standing up. “Book club’s over now. My compliments to Alfred for the quiche.”

Bruce stood up too, opening the window for her in true gentlemanly fashion. “We’re doing this again next month, right?”

She kissed his cheek, one leg already on the fire escape. “I’ll drop some books off later. Check your bedside.”

. . .

Wally West stared uncomfortably across the conference table. Normally he was the first person to show up for these things, but apparently Batman had been on monitor duty and decided to adjourn early to the meeting room.

“So,” Wally said awkwardly, breaking the silence. “‘Lost Stars,’ huh?”

Batman looked up from his book.

Wally gestured towards the title on the cover. “What’s a warrior cat?”

Batman looked back down at his book. Wally waited for a reply. It was not forthcoming.

He sighed, leaning back in his chair. This was going to be a long fifteen minutes.

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclaimer, my middle school Warrior Cats phase ended in the middle of arc three, so I've never actually read the series that Selina has Bruce read here. However, I spent more time than was probably healthy researching the focus and subject matter of all the books published thus far, and I feel like A Vision of Shadows is the series that Selina would recommend to Bruce first. 
> 
> I think Bruce would like Gillian Flynn novels a lot, but massively misunderstands what genre they're supposed to be. Like, he loved Gone Girl, but he was genuinely under the impression it was a romance novel all the way through. This is related to why he's a Needletail stan.


End file.
